Dad on Duty 128 – Fun Run, dancing and Pinatas!

Today is the “fun run”.  This is a fund raiser where kids run laps for money.  It is coordinated and managed by super high-energy college kids who do a great job of connecting with the scholars in the weeks leading up to the run. 

It’s a rainy, yucky day today, so the fun run will have to be inside.

No problem; the kids putting on the show have *got this*. 

They move all the inflatables and cones to the gym.   They’ve got cool flashing colored lights (which would have been useless outside, but are amazing in here) and music.  Really loud music. 

A few teachers really get into the spirit of the event by dressing up.  A pair of teachers are disguised as a gorilla and a banana, to get the races started.  Pretty cute.

But the winner, hands down, is Mr. F.  His real job here is one of the toughest in the district; he is responsible for our very-high maintenance behavioral kids, the ones in really big trouble.  Often just one-on-one.

So, for that guy, to dress up like this, is just stupendous. I couldn’t pull off that outfit. But he does, masterfully.

One young man shows off his dance skills with a very impressive “robot”

And if you have a really connected, beloved teacher like Ms. McCombs, you line dance with her across the gym.  Of course. 

*****

The volume of weird little things that occupy your time and attention in a school is really quite staggering.

Here’s an example from today. 

A teacher catches a KG-er playing with a plug protector as we are about to leave the cafeteria for the playground.  She hands it to me.  “I don’t know where he got this, but I bet it needs to go back”.  Sure, seems like plug protectors would be a good idea in this place.

So I look around here in the cafeteria.  There are no plug protectors anywhere.  I ask the kid: “where’d you get this?”.  He shrugs his shoulders and won’t tell us. 

I look in the adjacent hallway.  Nope, no protectors.  The bathroom…the gym….the art room….nope. 

Our lead custodian happens to walk by, so I ask him.  “No idea…” he responds.

OH MY LORD.  Where did this damn thing come from?!?!?

I carried this stupid object around in my pocket ALL DAY in the hopes of finding where it went.  Eventually, it went home with me and got thrown in recycling.

*******

Our dual language classes did Piñatas today.  But these were done the traditional, “real” way.  And everything was in Spanish. 

What an amazing way to learn a language!

*******

As I mentioned before, it’s raining today.  By dismissal time, it’s raining pretty hard. 

Dismissal car line, where parents pick up their kid by car, is a moderately risky activity.  There are, obviously, moving vehicles mixed in with kids walking around.  There is also always the concern of an unauthorized person showing up to pickup a kid.

It requires attention and vigilance.

And it cannot be done from the cover of the awning.  One can only protect these kids by standing out in traffic, in the rain.

And so Garret Brown does just that.

Without a moment of hesitation or even the smallest complaint. 

Because it’s his job and his duty.  And he takes it very seriously. 

And these kids really, really matter to him. 

We need more Garret Browns in the world.  Just….in general.